


Slice and Dice

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Chef Ben Solo, F/M, IT'S RAAAAAWWWWW, Kitchen Nightmares AU, Prep cook Rey, enough cursing to make Gordon Ramsay proud, gross descriptions of food
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:13:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: He didn’t want to go into the dilapidated restaurant or even so much put his fingers on the door handle. The sign to Niima Outpost was cracking and the red letters had faded to a miserable, pale orange color that was by no means inviting. At first glance, he wouldn’t have guessed it was a place for people to eat at all.But Ben finished his smoke and straightened his coat, instilling new determination in himself. After all, if he didn’t go through with this, Hux would never let him hear the end of it.The door chimed as he entered and he looked over his shoulder to grimace at the bell. How tacky.Right. There was a reason he had been invited here.





	Slice and Dice

**Author's Note:**

> Oh would you look at that...I'm starting another fic when I have a mountain of WIPs waiting to be finished. 
> 
> Thank you Evelyn for being an amazing beta reader and for sending me memes of Gordon Ramsay. It means the world! <3

Ben had no idea what he was doing there. He reached into the inner pocket of his peacoat with trembling fingers. They didn’t still until he took a long drag from a cigarette. He held the earthy smoke in his lungs for a long moment as the nicotine hit him with a soothing high.

 

He didn’t want to go into the dilapidated restaurant or even so much put his fingers on the door handle. The sign to _Niima Outpost_ was cracking and the red letters had faded to a miserable, pale orange color that was by no means inviting. At first glance, he wouldn’t have guessed it was a place for people to eat at all.

 

But Ben finished his smoke and straightened his coat, instilling new determination in himself. After all, if he _didn’t_ go through with this, Hux would never let him hear the end of it.

 

The door chimed as he entered and he looked over his shoulder to grimace at the bell. _How tacky._

 

Right. There was a reason he had been invited here, he reminded himself.

 

He turned back to face the frankly ghastly dining room just in time to be accosted by a young woman with her hair tied back in a row of three buns and a too-bright smile on her face.

 

“Welcome to Niima Outpost, I’m Rey. We spoke on the phone before, I believe.”

 

Well, at least someone was enthusiastic to be there.

 

“Ben,” he answered in a voice he hoped came across as steady, accepting the handshake she eagerly offered. “Are you the owner of this…” he could hardly describe it as _fine,_ “...establishment, then?”

 

She laughed, shaking her head. “No, no. I’m just the prep cook. But we’re in dire need of help here and when I saw your advert I couldn’t think of anyone else to turn to. Unkar Plutt is the owner and executive chef.”

 

Ben couldn’t believe her audacity. If a prep cook from one of his kitchens had dared to reach out for help without his approval, he would have fired them where they stood. Was there no chain of command in this restaurant? Though he could allow that desperate times called for desperate measures.

 

He wondered if this was a colossal waste of his time. “Does he know that I’m here, or--”

 

“Oh, yes. He’s in the kitchen at the moment.”

 

Ben huffed. Doing what, exactly? It wasn’t as if the dining room was bustling with business. As far as he could see, he was the only customer. The chef couldn’t be bothered to greet him when he had come to help save his dying business? Ben had to question whether this Unkar Plutt cared at all and the implication that he might not made his temples throb.

 

“Very well. Let’s start with the food.”

 

Nothing was more important to a restaurant than the food it served and to Ben, there was no place better to begin gauging where _Niima Outpost_ was going wrong. Or so he thought until Rey sat him at a squat, sticky table and handed him a laminated menu, complete with poorly lit photographs taken with the flash on of favored appetizers and entrees. Then he started to feel rather hopeless about the whole situation.

 

Ben was struck with the sudden fear that whatever he ordered would give him the runs.

 

To his surprise, a waiter didn’t approach his table to take his order. Instead, Rey popped back up, wielding a pen and a small pad of paper.

 

“Have you decided what you want to order?” She asked.

 

Ben swallowed. Her chipper attitude was somehow more intimidating than having a critic from _First Order Magazine_ walk through his door.

 

It was best he just get it over with...and pray he didn’t get food poisoning.

 

“What do you usually order?” He asked back.

 

 _Deflected,_ Hux would accuse. Well, when Hux had suggested a charity project to get him out of his own kitchen, pretty, optimistic girls with sunshine smiles and weird hairstyles and adorable little dimples--he was getting sidetracked. When he had signed up for this, _Rey_ hadn’t been part of the deal and now he felt more stressed than ever.

 

Rey shifted on her feet, an inauspicious sign of what was to be served. It must be bad if even the staff wouldn’t order off the menu.

 

“I would suggest the soup of the day to get you started,” she hesitated to say. “Today we have a stuffed pepper soup.”

 

At least there was something she would offer a customer that (hopefully!) wouldn’t send them running to the restroom. He nodded, skimming the rest of the menu again before deciding it was best he had a little taste of everything so he had a better idea of what he was getting himself into.

 

“I’ll have the stuffed pepper soup then, as well as the honey garlic salmon, the asparagus risotto, and pork loin with apple and leek stuffing.” Self-consciously, he handed back the menu with a brisk, “Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

Rey stashed Ben’s-- _the_ Ben Solo, whose cookbook rested on her apartment’s kitchen countertop, dogeared and well-loved--menu by the host podium, and scurried into the back to place his order with Plutt. Well, most of his order.

 

He had asked what she usually ordered but in all honesty, she brought lunch from home. Perhaps she should have said as much but his round, captivating eyes had fixed her in place and all common sense had spilled out her ears and onto the floor in a useless puddle. He was younger than she had thought he would be and though Rey should have been beyond fickle, girlish swooning, there was an unnamable something about him that enthralled her.

 

While Plutt fumbled about the kitchen, burning the garlic for Ben’s salmon, she snatched her thermos from the employee locker room and poured the still-hot soup into a restaurant bowl. Rey couldn’t pretend she was much more than decent in the kitchen but anything was better than what Plutt would serve. Maybe...if he liked just _one_ thing placed on his table, he wouldn’t go running for the hills.

 

He didn’t even have to _like_ it! She just didn’t want him to hate everything.

 

Oh, this truly was helpless. She was digging her own grave and Plutt was going to bury her in it if he found out she served her own soup to a customer.

 

Rey took a steadying breath, tossed back her shoulders, and walked back into the dining room.

 

Ben was not seated at the table but rather inspecting the wobbly sconce hanging on the wall behind where she had placed him. She stared at him until he realized he had an audience and promptly retook his seat with a flustered frown.

 

“Here’s your stuffed pepper soup,” she said, setting the bowl down in front of him. “I’ll be back shortly with the salmon.”

 

Embarrassed, feeling exposed, she rushed back into the kitchen to watch through the window as he tasted a spoonful. There was no sound of silverware being tossed across the room in disgust, no crash of his chair falling back, no slam of the front door. In fact, he had a second spoon. And a third--

 

_Ding!_

 

“Rey!” Plutt barked, pulling her attention away from where Ben sat, eating _her_ food. “Bring this up front before I start docking your pay for standing around!”

 

She wanted to snap back that he scarcely paid her at all but snarkiness was usually met with repercussions and dammit all, she was going to give Ben Solo the best service she could.

 

The plate he had slapped down onto the warmer wasn’t...the worst thing she’d seen him serve. Rey supposed she should count that as a plus. She grabbed the salmon before Plutt started throwing something more than words around and rushed out once more.

 

Thankfully, her soup seemed to have distracted Ben long enough that he hadn’t gotten enough opportunity to inspect the lighting fixtures. He looked up at her with those intense, brown eyes as if he hadn’t realized how long he had been on his own.

 

“How was the soup?” she breathed.

 

He sounded stunned despite himself. “It was excellent. I’m actually not finished with it so please, just leave that there.” Ben indicated the space to his left.

 

Her belly bubbled with excitement and she was unable to restrain her grin.

 

* * *

 

Ben peered down at the plate she had just left at his table. The difference between his half-finished soup and the salmon she served him was night and day. The stuffed pepper soup was vibrant with fresh vegetables, well-seasoned and warm in the way that settled into his bones. When he cut into the salmon, he was astounded to find that the piece of fish was miraculously burnt and dry on the outside while remaining fully raw in the center. He wouldn’t need to ask to know it had been put on the skillet frozen. Bitter flecks of burnt garlic stuck to the skin and disintegrated in his teeth, and it wasn’t necessary to take a bite of the mashed potatoes that came with it to know they were instant.

 

“Fuck me,” he uttered to himself. A child could do better than _that._

 

How could two dishes from the same restaurant be so utterly different? He tried another spoonful of the soup, savoring the comforting flavors of beef and roasted pepper. The two dishes couldn’t be from the same chef.

 

Then came the risotto. If it could be called that. Ben blinked at the white sauce that had been _artistically_ dribbled on top of the dish and he wondered aloud:

 

“Did someone jerk off on my plate?”

 

He nearly jumped when Rey coughed beside him. “It’s alfredo sauce,” she informed him with a pink face. “Chef Plutt has been generous with it recently.”

 

“Christ,” he mumbled, using his fork to push overcooked arborio rice across the plate. It had been turned into a congealed mush and Ben refused to put it anywhere near his mouth. When he picked up the plate to turn it on its side, the risotto stayed firmly in place while cold alfredo sauce from the jar dripped onto the table. “Does anyone actually order this shit?”

 

“Yes,” she told him with a dry tone, taking a cursory glance around the empty restaurant, “and then they don’t ever order again.”

 

“Because the food’s fucking _killed_ them,” he muttered. Ben wasn’t convinced he could take much more.

 

“Should I bring you the pork loin?”

 

Ben set his napkin onto the tabletop resolutely as he pushed his chair out to stand, covering the risotto with a death shroud. He was going to gag if he had to look at it again.  “I think I’ve seen enough. Why don’t you show me into the kitchen so I can meet Chef Plutt?”

…

 

Rey hadn’t been sure they would even get this far. The back of her neck prickled hotly as if she could physically feel Ben’s gaze fixed on it as he followed her into the kitchen. If there was one thing Rey felt confident about _Niima Outpost,_ it was the state of the kitchen, no thanks to Plutt. The equipment may have been dated but Rey was fastidious about keeping the place clean, even if it meant sacrificing a few hours of sleep each night.

 

It was worth it, not having one more reason for the restaurant to be failing. Plutt may have been the owner but Rey put everything that she was into _Niima Outpost._ For her, that actually meant something.

 

Ben paused beside her at realizing no one was in the kitchen besides Plutt. “Is it just the two of you working here?”

 

Plutt came out from around the narrow cooking area, wiping his hands on a grimy, unwashed apron as he pushed his shoulders back to make himself look taller. To draw a comparison between Chef Plutt and Chef Solo seemed a pointless task; staring between the two men as they silently appraised each other, it was like comparing two separate species. Rey wondered idly what would happen if Plutt took another step forward and his round beer-gut jutted into Ben.

 

Plutt must have seen whatever he needed to know because he turned to her and said, “I told you your little _friend_ could come in as long as he didn’t interrupt business. I didn’t say he could come into _my_ kitchen to judge how I run _my_ restaurant.”

 

Rey felt herself flush from her cheeks all the way down to her chest, her skin heated beneath her uniform jacket. Now Ben would definitely leave, and both she and _Niima Outpost_ would be ruined.

 

“What business? There’s no one here, you fucking asshole. It seems to me the only thing you’re doing back here is fondling yourself while your restaurant falls apart and your sole employee runs around like a headless chicken!”

 

Plutt growled, shoving a grubby finger into Ben’s face. “The food I make is delicious! I don’t tell you how to do your job--”

 

“I don’t need someone to tell me how to do my job!” he snarled back. “I am the owner of several successful restaurants including _Kylo Ren._ You might have heard of it, it has two Michelin stars and reservations are booked three months in advance! And that’s because the food I serve isn’t absolute shit.”

 

For the first time in her life, Rey saw Plutt was too flustered to speak. Ben seemed to take that as encouragement to continue.

 

“The salmon you sent to my table was black and raw in the center, probably because you decided to cook it while it was still frozen. I couldn’t even eat the risotto you sent me. The rice was an overcooked paste and who the hell puts alfredo sauce on a risotto? It looked like a puddle of semen on my plate!”

 

Ben glanced at the last dish he had ordered, still resting on the warmer. He set the plate onto the counter with a _clang_ , snatching a silverware set from the basket Rey had put them, wrapped in paper napkins. Even Rey was stunned as he cut down the middle of the pork loin, a mess of apple chunks spilling out. He took a bite and nearly turned to spit it out a moment later.

 

“It’s dry, under-seasoned, and the apples are cut in abnormal sizes so half of them are mush while the rest are still raw. Do you ever actually taste anything that comes out of this kitchen or do you just throw it against the wall and hope it sticks? No customer is going to pay for that!”

 

His chest was heaving as he barked, “I want you to take a bite of that and tell me again that your food is delicious. I fucking dare you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Okay. So he had probably gone a little too far. Rey was staring up at him like she was the heroine out of a fifties horror film and he was the dreaded lake monster and Plutt’s jaw was somewhere on the floor while his gaping maw collected flies.

 

Regardless. Ben had a point to make and he was damned well going to make it.

 

“Are you telling me that you have the balls to serve this crock of shit to your own customers but you won’t try it yourself?” he asked, holding out his fork. “Take a bite!”

 

But it wasn’t Chef Plutt who reached to take the utensil. Instead, a small hand shot forward, slender fingers brushing against his as Rey took the fork with an expression of resigned determination. She grimaced while she chewed, swallowing several times to get the dry meat down.

 

Finally, she cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t pay for that.”

 

He supposed he should be glad at least the prep cook had some standards. How the chef dared to call himself _executive_ was beyond Ben.

 

A meaty hand darted across his peripheral, curling around the entirety of Rey’s arm and yanking sharply. She went careening towards Plutt, crying out in surprise when the fist around her bicep squeezed tighter.

 

“No one asked for your opinion, girl!”

 

Ben’s reaction was sudden and without a conscious thought beyond _you can’t treat her that way._ He grabbed Plutt’s thick wrist with a fist of his own, clenching tight enough to dig his fingertips into the flabby flesh and leave oval-shaped bruises.

 

“Is it normal for you to throw your employees around like rag-dolls?”

 

The question was met with reluctant silence. It was answer enough for Ben.

 

Rey looked up at him with her great, big, shining eyes and whatever clever, insulting thing he had been prepared to tell Plutt flew right out of his head. Priorities he didn’t know he had become clear in an instant and glaring fiercely at Plutt, Ben shooed her out of the kitchen before her grimy boss snapped to.

 

“I asked you a question.”

 

Plutt sneered. “I don’t answer to you. This is _my_ restaurant.”

 

“And how much longer will it _be_ your restaurant before you go under? From what Rey told me over the phone, _Niima Outpost_ has about three weeks before its shut down for good--and it’s no wonder. The meal you prepared for me was shit. I wouldn’t give it to a dog. And neither would your customers, which is why you don’t have any. You have _got_ to keep this kitchen together if the restaurant is going to stay afloat, smacking around your prep cook is only going to make you sink faster. You’re lucky that she hasn’t reported you, I wouldn’t have thought twice.”

 

Plutt stomped menacingly, closing the distance between them. Ben straightened his back, preening. He was still the taller man and Plutt had no choice but to grovel if he wanted to meet his gaze.

 

“She wouldn’t dare.”

 

Ben wasn’t so convinced. “You don’t think so? She’s already dared to ask me for help, even if it meant going over your thick head, and just now, she dared to eat the steaming pile of shit _you_ call food. As far as I can tell, between the two of you, she’s the one who might have enough backbone to save this restaurant.”

 

Plutt leaned closer, nervous sweat gleaming on his forehead. “That girl would be nothing without me.”

 

“We’ll see about that.”

 

* * *

 

Rey was still trembling when Ben left the kitchen in a rush, the door swinging violently behind him. She had listened to them argue while staring at a crack in the wall, reminding herself that it wasn’t so bad this time. The bruises would fade quickly and it wasn’t as if Plutt had marked her face. She was too self-conscious to glance at Ben, even as he came to stand over her, busying herself by smoothing down her shirt.

 

He sighed, crouching next to her chair, making himself small in an attempt to be less intimidating. It didn’t make his eyes any less intense when she finally met his gaze.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

 _No!_ She wanted to tell him. _I already aged out of the system, he shouldn’t be able to hold this power over me still._

 

Rey nodded her head. There was nothing more to say; she was the one who had given Plutt that power in the first place.

 

“Good,” he said, promptly rising to his full height. She blinked mutely when he offered his hand. “I’m starving. Let’s go get lunch.”

 

“But…” Rey’s eyes flickered between him and the kitchen door. Lunch service might have been dead but that didn’t mean she could slack on preparations for dinner service. It was all too easy to imagine Plutt’s face red and crumpled with fury.

 

“But nothing,” he quipped, jutting his palm closer. “Do you like Italian? I think I saw a place across the street from here.”

 

Less than five minutes later, she was sipping diet coke from a glass that was slick with condensation, eyeing the neighboring restaurant’s menu with uncertainty. Rey didn’t eat out very often, her meager paychecks saw to that, and she hardly saw the point of Ben eating at _Maz’s_ when their restaurant wasn’t on the verge of shut down. Hell, she didn’t even have her wallet with her.

 

She did her part by getting Ben to _Niima Outpost._ What else could he expect of her? It wasn’t as if she had the power to change anything in the restaurant, she was a prep cook!

 

“I liked your soup,” he said without preamble, setting aside his own menu. “Why isn’t it being served?”

 

Rey reread the description for shrimp scampi a third time, her face flushing with warmth as she continued to look anywhere but at him. It was too much for her to bear, that _the_ Ben Solo had liked her cooking well enough to comment on it.

 

“How did you know I cooked it?”

 

He snorted, and the sound made her feel very silly. “Well, I knew Plutt didn’t. That doesn’t answer my question, why isn’t it on the menu?”

 

She took a steadying breath, sitting up in her seat. He may have been world-renowned but he was still a human being. She was being ridiculous, even if something in her belly _swooped_ at knowing he enjoyed her cooking.

 

“Plutt doesn’t put anything on the menu that he didn’t create. He likes having complete control over the kitchen.”

 

“He _is_ a jerk-off, then,” Ben concluded.

 

Rey laughed when he asked, “Are you _sure_ that was alfredo on the risotto?”

 

It made it easier to tell him exactly what the problem was.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is like a well-cooked risotto. ;)


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